Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1887-10-13
Prices That Farmers Pay.

pay on nearly everything he buys,
while he has to sell his produce at
European market values, less the
cost Of transportation from the de-
pot to the foreign port, which eats
up half the price and leaves him no
profit. If he could buy his goods
for two.thirds Of what he now has
to pay for them, or could charge so
per cent. more for his crops, he
could get along comfortably. But
buying his goods and wares at high
tariff rates and having to pay for
them with crops that only fetch
free trade prices, less expense of
transportation, leaves him nothing
but aches and empty pockets y
free trade Newspaper.
1t would be difficult to embody
greater number of perversions of
fact and of fallacies in SO few lines
as the above quotation from free
trade newspaper contains.
The farmer does not pay bounty
on nearly everything that he buys.
The prices for everything that the
farmer buys were never before so
low as they are at the present time.
If any farmer has Chicago Tribune
list of prices under the low revenue
tariff that prevailed in 1858, let him
compare it with list of prices now.
Sugar, salt, cotton and wooden cloth,
household and farming utensils,
nails, boots and shoes, articles of
female wear, ready-made clothing
for men-everything that the farmer
buys for his own use, for family
use, and for farm use, are less in
price by one-half in most cases, and
10y more than one.half in many
cases, than they We're in low tariff
times before the war, Brown sugar
then cost 10 cents and white sugar
Is cents a pound; now the best
white sugar can be bought for Z
cents a pound. Salt then cost 81 a
barrel; it now costs IS cents a bar
rel. Cotton cloth that then cost
from 10 to 10 cents a yard can now
be bought for frop to 7 cents a
yard. Wooden cloth is proportions
ately cheaper. Statistics are better
than arguments, and the figures of
the market reports do not lie. For
a So bill farmer, or anybody else,
can now buy rs much of any of the
necessaries of life above enumerated
as could have been bought for $40
bill under any low tariff system that
ever prevailed. "High tariff rates
give the farmer and all others lower
priced goods than Glow tariff rates
ever furnished.
On the other hand, the protection
given by the tariff laws to the farm
er is as great in proportion as that
given to any other class of produc-
ers Wheat is protected by tariff
of 30 cents a bushel. Butter end
cheese are protected by tariff of
cents a pound Animals to be killed
for food are protected 10y tariff OF
20 per cent, and beef aud pork are
protected by a tariff of . cents a
pound. The present tariff laws, IL
other ways, protest every product OF
the field, the dairy and the forest
If protective tariff makes the
farmer pay bounty on everything
that he buys" its makes everybody
else pay him bounty on every
thing that he sells.
: The prices of farm products are
temporarily depressed. But the
| farming population of the country
; were never SO well off as at the
present time. Farming lands never
] before bore so nigh a price AS they
do now. The farmer never before
had SO many comforts in his home
his family was never SO vel
dressed, SO well fed, SO we'll housed
SO we'll schooled and SO well pro
yided for in every way as they are
, now. Shiftless, uuthrlfy and un
busiuesslike husbandry never pros
pered, nor does it now prosper. NJ
business or industry prospers if 1t l.
conducted in shittIess and thrift
less manner. But farmers who
manage their farms methodicalIy
on a correct system, and generally
L